Sleep problems among active duty military members and veterans are all too common. In recent years we’ve seen a growing body of research exploring the problems associated with soldiers’ sleep—and unfortunately, much of the news has not been good. Both activity duty personnel and veterans of the military are at significantly greater risk for sleep disorders than the public at large. Sleep problems often coincide and contribute to other health problems for active duty soldiers and veterans, complicating their return from deployment and combat and elevating their risk for a number of serious physical and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. ​

Everyone is run ragged and spread too thin, planning, cooking, working around conflicting family schedules, and organizing transitioning kids.

Blended families have additional stresses that may include –

spending time with ex-spouses and multiple sets of grandparents,visiting kids who may be homesick for the other parent,loneliness if your child is spending time with the other parent,step sibling rivalry,competitive gift giving,a bunch of children who may be over excited and over indulged transitioning between households.

There’s this idea that holiday gatherings with family are supposed to be joyful and stress-free. That’s not the case. Family relationships are complicated. But that doesn’t mean that the solution is to skip the holidays entirely.

The holidays offer plenty of reasons to be stressed out and anxious -- the gifts you haven’t wrapped, the pile of cookie exchange invites, the office parties. But for many, the biggest source of holiday stress is family -- the family dinner, the obligations, and the burden of family tradition.

Adopting a pet is known to lower your stress level -- with animals the leading approach to destress. Not only will you be saving yourself some stress, who wants a stress ball when you can have a cuddle buddy. By adopting you will also be getting a helpless animal off the streetIt has been proven in many studies that something as simple as playing with your pet may lower stress level and produce more Oxytocin aka less stress